Fifty five redundancies confirmed at the Ministry of Social Development

Ministry of Social Development Chief Executive Peter Hughes today praised the professionalism of his staff as the Ministry announced it has completed redundancy agreements with 55 staff whose roles have been disestablished.

"In May I announced a cross-ministry restructure to free up people and resources from mainly administration and management roles so we could increase our frontline services. 

"We are well advanced with this restructuring that has been felt across all parts of the Ministry and impacted directly on just over 1,000 staff of the Ministry's 10,000 workforce.
 
"All of the 55 people who have been made redundant have chosen redundancy as their preferred option after their roles were disestablished.  We are sorry to see them go and I want to thank them for the service they have given to the Ministry and New Zealanders.

"I also want to thank all of the Ministry's staff, the PSA and NUPE for their feedback and cooperation as we have made these changes.

"We are working with a further 43 staff who have lost their jobs but have told us that they want to stay working for the Ministry. We will be doing everything we can to identify opportunities for them over the next few months.

"There is no reason to rush to compulsory redundancies.  By taking a bit of extra time and working with the remaining affected staff I am confident that total redundancies will be well below the original worst case scenario of up to 200 redundancies. 

"New programmes like Job Ops, Community Max, Fresh Start, Break Away, and Vulnerable Infants need skilled and experienced frontline staff.  These changes will help ensure that," said Peter Hughes.